According to a 2021 study, the US is the world's biggest plastic polluter, producing around 42 million metric tons of plastic every year (around 130 kilograms or 286 pounds, per American).
Single-use plastic products — designed to be used once and then thrown away — pile up in landfills and find their way into the environment, proving deadly for wildlife and even affecting human health.
Based on data from Keep America Beautiful's 2020 litter study, this graphic from Visual Capitalist and Greenbutts illustrates the single-use plastic items that Americans litter the most.
Click to enlarge image
Via Visual Capitalist.
Cigarette butts are by far the most littered item, with 9.6 billion chucked — that's almost one-fifth of all littered items in the US. If every one of these cigarette butts were lined up, they'd wrap around the Earth a staggering five times.
And, it's important to note that cigarette butts do not biodegrade, they just degrade — which means they break down into tiny particles that end up in our water, food and the air we breathe.
The worst culprits after cig butts are plastic film (non-food) and plastic film (food), totaling 2.8 billion and 2.6 billion pieces littered, respectively.
Swapping out single-use plastics for reusable items is an effective way to mitigate the environmental harm caused plastics worldwide.
Liked this viz? Check out more data visualizations on the environment:
